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Full Idea
By the will I understand a faculty of affirming or denying, but not a desire; a faculty, I say, by which the mind affirms or denies that which is true or false.
Gist of Idea
The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false
Source
Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 48)
Book Ref
Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics', ed/tr. White,WH/Stirling,AH [Wordsworth 2001], p.87
A Reaction
This is to be compared with the empiricist tendency to say that there are nothing but desires. On the whole I'm with Spinoza here. Hobbes thinKs of actions in the world, but Spinoza sees the will as operating in the process of reasoning.
Related Ideas
Idea 2384 Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes]
Idea 17198 Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza]
| 13784 | Mind is self-ruling, pure, ordering and ubiquitous [Anaxagoras, by Plato] |
| 1714 | Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle] |
| 20809 | Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 23266 | The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen] |
| 18453 | Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry] |
| 17196 | The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false [Spinoza] |
| 17198 | Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza] |
| 17201 | The will is finite, but the intellect is infinite [Spinoza] |
| 23242 | Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte] |
| 8648 | Ideas are not spatial, and don't have distances between them [Frege] |
| 2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
| 3368 | Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim] |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| 6152 | Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands] |